An Artist's Journey

Around second-grade, boys are able to join Cub Scouts, or at least they were 40 years ago. I remember the first time I saw a bunch of my fellow second-graders wearing Cub Scout uniforms, I thought they looked like a bunch of pussies. Dark blue with the yellow kerchief and the retard hat with the short-bill. Our teachers had special duties for the boys wearing the blue uniforms. . the ass-boys.

Not for me. The same went for patrol boy belts. To me these fuckers were sucking-up to the Man, doing the scut work and bullshit THEY didn’t feel like doing. This was for slapdicks. These were the asshatss who would go on to become the
world’s “hall-monitors” and “gatkeepers,” polishing Goliath’s toenails.

Ass-kissers, boot-lickers, brownnosers, coatholders and towel boys. Ick. Give me the anarchists over these twats any day of the week.

Teachers started referring to me as a “misfit” almost immediately. In kindergarten, I once made a fort out of the big wooden
blocks and was sitting in it quite happily when a shithead named Ray Bojacki decided he wanted to take down my wall and build his own. I told him to go find some other blocks and to keep his shithooks off of mine.

Ray Bojacki was a slow fucking learner and proceeded to try and dismantle my fort.

After I bounced a large wooden block off of Ray Bojacki’s head, he went running and crying like a tampon to the teacher, a buxom Teutonic number named Miss Hirst. Of course she went mental–lot of “poor Ray Bojacki”. ..la-la. I wanted to tell her everything would have just been fine if Ray Bojacki had exercised a little enterprise on his own and kept his mitts off my shit, but she wasn’t having any. She looked at me and told me I was a “misfit” and not a very nice little boy.

I wanted to say, “No shit lady. Did you figure that out all by yourself?”or, “Why don’t you tell Ray Bojacki to sack up and fight his own battles, instead of bitching up and running to the teacher?”

I didn’t say anything. She called my mother and my ass was kicked out and sent home.

I began to get the idea that school was going to suck balls. Kindergarten was only HALF a day and next year I’d have to waste my afternoons with these assholes as well. I hated school. My teachers were largely simpletons who only wanted to work
nine months a year. There was a lot of talk about “teamwork” and “having a good attitude” spewed by a bunch of mouth breathers whose lips moved when they read the comics. A lot of dipshits calling me “Son” and asking me what I wanted to be when I grew up.

All of the other dopes wanted to be cops or astronauts or cowboys or some shit.

I wanted to rob banks and trains like Jesse James.

Jesse was a badass; no pantywaist service positions in his future.

The railroad stole Jesse and Frank James’ mother’s farm and Jesse and Frank started stacking asses. The railroad had their own private cops–the Pinkertons. These were the 19th century equivalent of the jagbags you see at Wal-Mart with the spray and the stick–Rent-a-Cops.

Jesse and Frank killed the shit out of these dipshits. In fact, Jesse left behind a drawer full of Pinkerton badges, cadged off the stack of dickheads he personally introduced to Jesus. I dug Jesse James. Being a train robber, to me, beatthe hell out of eating shit and kissing ass the rest of your life.

In third grade, I wrote a report about what a cool guy Jesse James was and the nun told me I was headed for the “Island of Misfit Toys.” I told her as long as she wasn’t there, that would be fine.

Even this idea has some appeal for me; having a sanctuary for those of us who don’t fit in. The Hell’s Angels refer to themselves as the “one percenters“–the one per cent that doesn’t fit in and doesn’t fucking want to.